The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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229963 F/O John "Jackie" Reid DFM Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve A Flight 605 Sqdn. from:Hemel Hempstead (d.26th June 1944) My uncle John (Jackie) Reid, RAFVR, served at 12 AFU between 25th May 1943 and 2nd August 1943. This was where he was posted after 271 Sqdn, and from 12 AFU, he went to 60 OTU to do a conversion on Mosquitos, then from there to 605 Sqdn till 26th October. He and his Observer, Sgt Ray Phillips, were killed on 26th June 1944 while on a NFT over Margate. His aircraft, NS880, exploded and crashed in flames over the main up/down London railway line. He had been promoted to Flt Lt a couple of days before his death, but had yet to receive notice of it. It transpires that on 5th/6th June 1944, he and two other 605 Mosquitos were over the Caen area, taking out searchlights and AA guns, (obviously before the para landings) at 0011hrs on the 6th, where his aircraft dropped the first bomb on D Day. He was extremely proud of that. This was confirmed in his logbook by his Intelligence Officer. Norrie Southam Add to this record.  Related Content: No. 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron Royal Air Force D Day and the Battle of Normandy No. 12 (P) Advanced Flying Unit, Royal Air Force No. 271 Squadron Royal Air Force Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.